


Kintsugi

by blind_bombshell



Series: Mosaic [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Madancy Multiverse - Fandom
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Challenge Response, F/F, Fluff, Gen, How Do I Tag, If You Squint - Freeform, Jack being Jack, M/M, Murder Husbands, This might be fluffy, cannibae fluff, is this fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-02 21:19:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8683765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blind_bombshell/pseuds/blind_bombshell
Summary: My contribution to #HannibaLibre - Cannibaes in Cuba. This week: Jack follows a clue given by Freddie Lounds... it doesn't go well.





	1. Interim

**Author's Note:**

  * For [murdergatsby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/murdergatsby/gifts), [pinkbagels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkbagels/gifts).



Life isn't all cabanas and mojitos in Havana, Jack had found. Though if it were, he figured it wouldn't be much fun at all. If you ask any of the locals about living in Cuba, all they'd have to offer is a wry smile and a bog-standard, "No es facil," quickly followed by a shrewd, "My friend! Where you from?"

 

The first thing he discovered, after landing and heading for the first restroom he found, is that the average Cuban toilet has no seat or lid. The second thing he discovered upon entering his "entirely authentic hotel room" was if you're an American, you were in for a hell of a creature comfort shock. No air conditioning and, if you have his luck at least, your mattress may have termites.

 

Luckily for him, there are fewer ex-pats in Havana than other Caribbean and Latin American capitals. As their immigration laws are strict and foreigners can't own private businesses, people looking to just "get away from it all" tend to avoid Cuba. Quite frankly, **exile** compels people to live there - but if you had a spare thought, that living in Cuba would be easy, you would be sorely disappointed. People in Havana are nosy, especially about people who are obviously foreign, and constantly underscore their "other" status. Foreigners are on the last, lowest rung of their society - they're seen as frivolous, rich, careless, and/or only looking to get off. Regardless how long a person's lived there, they're seen as easy marks for criminals.

 

Quite frankly, this type of behavior is what Jack was banking on in order to find Freddie Lounds' infamous Murder Husbands. God, how he hated that moniker. It cheapened their crimes, the carnage they had wrought, turned them into some sort of Bonnie & Clyde figures for the Internet to champion and speculate about (and, annoyingly, buy t-shirts of - he was sure Lounds had made a pretty penny off of those). Of course, Brian and Jimmy hadn't been much better.

 

When they arrived on the crime scene, before they even started to search for the bodies or process the evidence, they'd started bickering like an old married couple.

 

_"You owe me fifty bucks, Zeller."_

 

 _"We don't know they're even still_ **_alive_ ** _\--"_

 

_"Doesn't matter. I said they'd run off together."_

 

_"Off a cliff doesn't count."_

 

_"Tomaytoe -"_

 

_"This isn't a joke, fellas," Jack bellowed._

 

 _Brian scoffed, "C'mon, boss, it's a_ **_little_ ** _funny."_

 

Almost immediately after they announced their bodies hadn't been found, almost six months after The Fall, "tips" had flooded various law enforcement agencies around the world. All of them entirely bogus, most of them by people who didn't even bother to speculate what injuries they would have sustained. It was very unlikely a fresh-faced Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter even existed, right now. After a bloody fight like that, which had been garishly recorded by the Tooth Fairy's video camera (blurrily, yes, and a detail they kept out of the press) it was highly unlikely either of them were alive let alone looking fresh as damn daisies after a confrontation and a fall like that. (Even if they  _hadn't_ gone over the cliff - the situation of which was still up for debate, by the way, though plenty of people had taken the opportunity to paint Will Graham as some sort of romantic hero - the injuries they'd sustained before then were enough to severely impede their likelihood of living let alone remaining unscarred and ambulatory.)

 

Jack sighed as he read his newspaper, one eye surveying the crowd outside the cafe he'd parked himself at, the hot colada in its innocuous Styrofoam cup lighting up his brain and fingers tapping along to a song he could barely hear the lyrics to blaring from inside. Of course, that all had been almost two years ago and now, now he was in Havana chasing a lead. Illegally, actually, seeing as America doesn't have an extradition treaty with Cuba and, quite honestly, when he'd even broached the subject to Kade she'd made oblique comments to his early retirement coming even earlier should be persue it. As far as the FBI and United States government were concerned, despite whatever Freddie Lounds and her comments section said, Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter had died that day after consummating their sick bond through murder (though Price, once he saw the tape, would argue - at great length - it was a self-defense killing) of the serial rapist and murderer known as The Tooth Fairy. They gave Molly a very hefty care package, being the wife of a man who was "one of their own" who was killed going above and beyond the call of duty. She hadn't made any trouble for them at all, just had a quiet meeting with Kade and suddenly she was set for life. Even when Jack had floated the idea that Will was still alive and being held captive by Hannibal, she had simply given him a watery smile and reaffirmed that her husband is dead. What's more, almost two years on, she seemed to be happy with her girlfriend, Reba, taking in shelter dogs and raising Walter together. For some people, there would probably be rumors of wedding bells by now, but given their collective histories - he didn't blame them for taking it slow.

 

He took another sip of his colada, eyes flickering across the crowd before looking back to his paper. Still, there were worse places to spend his built-up vacation days, even if this was a wild goose chase. Taking cues from Freddie Lounds had to be a new low, he had to admit, but the pictures.. _._ Grainy and blurry at best, half-naked and tan notwithstanding, he knew Will when he saw him… And think of the Devil, despite the facial hair, sunglasses, and white panama hat, he knew Will in-person, too.

 

He also knew when Will knew he was there.

 

Jack groaned, annoyed, as Will ducked out of sight and Jack, feeling proverbially _too_ _old for this shit_ , gave chase. Like a silverfish, Will wove through the crowd, politely excusing himself and twisting his way through without so much a ripple in the populace. No one noticed him gliding through, much like he always did, seemingly on a mission. The locals smiled and waved at him, calling to him in good humor.

 

Jack, on the other hand, was like a bull. Doggedly following the bobbing white hat, tripping over natives and locals, barreling over produce stands and not paying attention to any of it - he couldn't lose sight of the white hat. He just _knew_ if he did, they - the so-called "murder husbands" - would be lost to him for another year or maybe even forever. As he skidded into an alleyway, he was just in time to see the cream-suited man slip into a colorful, yet decrepit building.

 

Blithely, he barreled in after him... and everything went startlingly, resoundingly  **_black._ **

  
  


He came-to an unknown amount of time later, a bandage on his forehead and head swimming from an obvious injury. Everything felt swimmy and he couldn't tell if it was from the injury or if he'd been drugged. He struggled against his bonds weakly, mouth taped and feeling enough deja vu to drown an elephant.

 

"Ah. He lives. Hello, Uncle Jack."

 

His stomach dropped at the same time he felt bile rise in his throat. Smug. He always sounded so damn _smug._ Jack worked his jaw, but he felt detached from his body, everything not working like it should be. A hand tipped his head back so he could see more of the room and immediately wished he couldn't. Directly in front of him, in a similar linen suit, stood Hannibal Lecter and just beyond him stood Will Graham. He wanted to be relieved to have found Will in one piece, more or less, but the way he was standing and the look in his eye was unsettling enough to make him think that maybe he shouldn't celebrate just yet.

 

"Will is an excellent fisherman, Jack, it was a joy to watch him bait you. Reel you in... You see, Jack, you are the fish... and this? This is the net," Hannibal looked down at him, entirely too amused for Jack's liking but he was fully unable to do anything about it. "Bienvenido a Cuba, Agente Crawford. Sorry you can't stay and enjoy yourself, but really... You should have let us stay dead."

 

With great effort, Jack managed to move his focus blearily from Hannibal's annoyingly beatific face and to Will's stormy and entirely unimpressed one. He tried to convey his need for pity, for sympathy, but he felt like he was attempting to empathize with a brick wall. "Don't you see how much easier, how much SAFER it would have been, for all of us, if you just - for once - would have let us go?" Will's voice was slightly slurred, his mouth working in odd ways, obviously from muscle, ligament, and nerve damage from the fight with the Dragon and Jack had a moment of abject pity for the man before Will took a step forward and entwined his fingers with Hannibal's - like they did this all the time, like they really were... Murder Husbands. The absolute familiarity and domesticity of the movement made Jack want to vomit.

 

"Goodnight, Jack."


	2. Gemma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will starts hallucinating after The Fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gemma - a small bud from which new life can grow
> 
> There's references to suicide ideation and self-mutilation, but it's a passing thought and not something the character actually desires. However, if that sort of talk is a trigger, no hurt feelings if you back-out.
> 
> Un-beta'd.

The first time Will saw Beverly after The Fall, he wanted to laugh. Seriously, what the fuck? First the overwhelming empathy plagued him his entire life, then the encephalitis hallucinations, the Wendigo, the peryton-elk-stag thing, the sleep walking, then the regular shit like nightmares of horns emerging from his back and hallucinating dear Abigail for WEEKS after her death. What the fuck else, but of course he would see Beverly only two days after The Fall. Of course he would see her face instead of Chiyoh’s, as the woman made sure he didn’t die from infection or something worse as his entire body rebelled against the onslaught of pain he had invited against it. _Of course._ He couldn’t wait for the musical number. That was the only thing left, right?

He tried to smile, though by the look on Bev’s face he hadn’t quite made it. With the gross, hot swelling hole that was that side of his face, he didn’t know what else he expected. _That’s okay_ , he reasoned as darkness swallowed him down through the mattress and into unconciousness, _I’ll do better next time_.

The second time Will saw Beverly after The Fall, he almost called out to her.

They were docked in a small town on the east coast of Mexico. He wasn’t quite sure where they were. Or if it even was Mexico, now that he thought about it. All he knew was that he was alive, THEY were alive, and Chiyoh was out to see a man about fixing the numbness in his face. Maybe pretty him up a bit. He shrugged and immediately regretted the gesture. The scar tissue on top of scar tissue on top of scar tissue within his shoulder wasn’t doing him any favors and he briefly wondered if he should worry more about it. He looked over to where Hannibal was sitting on the bow, wind in his hair, clothes billowing about him, calm look on his face. He could have been any of the hundreds of weekend millionaires on the deck of their yachts, if it wasn’t for the giant bandage around his middle. No blood soaking through it yet, luckily. He tried to smile, felt only one side of his face move, and immediately felt like throwing himself overboard. He didn’t want to die anymore, not really, but he didn’t… want this face. He wanted to cut it all off and start over again.

 As if hearing his thoughts, Hannibal outstretched an arm towards him, his eyes still closed and face still tilted towards the sun, welcoming Will into the sunlight and sea air. Will breathed out heavily through his nose and looked away onto the dock where people were bustling about, yelling in different languages, bartering, and that’s when he saw her. She looked good, her hair back in a ponytail – she didn’t normally wear it that way, but she looked like she was on her way somewhere, or maybe it was in deference to the heat. She wore a white shirt and loose navy blue linen shorts, walking towards their boat but gesturing to a shell vendor. She looked beautiful, actually. His arm twitched at his side, wanting to say hi and catch up. _It’s been forever,_ he thought, _it’s so good to see you_ … and then, he remembered.

 

He went back below deck.

  
The third time he saw Bev, she was leaning over his hospital bed in who-the-fuck-knows-where, Cuba. This was the second surgery on his face and, Hannibal had made him promise, the last for a while. While the first one had been purely restructuring and sutures to prevent infection and further damage - and also included some restructuring to his shoulder - this one was almost entirely cosmetic. Some skin from the back of his thighs was being laid over his cheek to fully cover the damage that had been done by the knife. The doctor said he would still have a large scar, but would regain full use of his face and heal the worst of the damage, and the cage holding his teeth would finally be taken out as the bone had finally re-knit though he would still have a lisp until those stitches could be taken out.

“I’ll be pretty for you again,” he’d said, just before going under, trying for a wry smile but knowing he was failing, hearing his slurred voice as if it was someone else's.

“Oh, Will,” Hannibal had replied, grasping his hand tighter, as if he was a child who’d made a crude drawing of his family up on the wall. _Hannibal would be the type of parent to put a frame around it and show it to everyone, even the mailman,_  he mused as his brain grew fuzzy and he tried (failed, tried again) not to think of Mason Verger and the movie “Face/Off”.

When he woke up, Beverly was checking his vitals and telling the nurse to make sure he was comfortable. “You speak Spanish?” he asked, before his brain caught up with his mouth, wiggling his fingers in Hannibal's almost too-tight grip. His face slack with sleep, head nearly buried in the blankets on Will's stomach.

She smiled softly. “Of course I do. Much more practical than French, wouldn’t you say?”

Something pulled at Will, something familiar. Bev said that to him once. The real Bev not… whoever was wearing her face right now. “Le français est aussi une langue important, vous savez.”

She laughed, surprisingly bright in the small darkened room, "Quizás."

He wanted to keep talking to her, keep seeing Beverly’s face and hearing her voice but sleep rushed in like the tide and when he woke up again, Hannibal was still by his side, hand still in hand, and he gripped him back as tightly as he could, feeling buoyed by the affection he held for this man – and probably the morphine helped. But here? In this moment? He felt something rare, for him. He felt…  calmed. Contented, even.

 

After months of seeing her in different places - sometimes random women would be wearing her face and other times he would glimpse her in a crowd and, on one memorable occasion, he saw her swimming in the cove by their house - the eighth time he saw Bev, he told Hannibal about it. They were having dinner. Lamb Ropa Vieja (actual lamb) – easy to digest and chew, in deference to Will’s still-healing face and Hannibals' still-healing stomach. The incident with Jack was just a few days behind them. Burial at sea, neither of them had wanted to consume him, in the end. It was better this way, than for them to run. Better for Jack, too, he wouldn’t be tortured by them any longer. It was basically a mercy killing.

It was hardly their first murder since they’d taken residence in Cuba, but definitely the most gratifying. The most poignant. A representation of their past that was firmly behind them being put to rest. The others were just… convenience kills. A tourist or three who recognized them. The person they bought their identities from who had threatened to expose them, plus his failsafe. No one who _deserved_ it, really, no one who would grace their table.

Cuba, though, had been really amazing for them. Quick to get to, cheap healthcare, but now they were almost healed and with Jack dead, it would be time to move on. Especially since the FBI was now, apparently, taking cues from Freddie Lounds. They wouldn’t have to leave Cuba for another few weeks, though, at least, and then they could head to another country with no extradition to the US. The Maldives, maybe.

At any rate, it was time to come clean. If Beverly was going to be a running theme, here, it was only fair that Hannibal knew, after all. They had no other secrets.

Will glanced up at Hannibal, who smiled at him like he'd done something particularly adorable, and it made him flush like a teenager and look back down at his wine.

They still hadn’t slept together. Well, they slept together, they hadn’t been in separate beds since before The Fall but they hadn’t… made love… yet. It was almost ludicrous, really, what they had done outside of orgasms but they hadn’t quite managed to… get there.. Yet. It was on the horizon, a notch for Someday, just as was recreational cannibalism. Killing together for pleasure and not just to stay hidden. It was as inevitable as the tide.

He cleared his throat. “Hannibal, there’s been something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

“If this is going to be another probe into my time with Bedelia, I would appreciate it if you could wait until after dessert as I would like to enjoy this meal.”

Will laughed heartily. “No. God, no. Well, not right now. I just… I think you should know that I’ve been seeing someone.”

Hannibal stopped. Completely. It was if his inner mechanism had been turned off with a switch. There was a long beat before Will realized what he’d said. “ ** _NO_ ** . God. Not like that. I mean, hallucinating. I’ve been seeing someone who isn’t _there,_ Hannibal.”

Hannibal moved again, as if no misunderstanding had taken place at all, as if he hadn’t quit moving like a cut marionette just a few seconds ago. “Like Abigail?”

“Yes.”

“Who is it? Are they here, now?”

Beverly sat at the other end of the table, mindlessly swirling food around her plate, “Why am I even here, Graham? I don’t need to see this.”

To Hannibal, he said, “Yeah. It’s… It’s Bev… Er, Beverly Katz.” He tried to look at Hannibal in the eyes, though every fiber in his body was telling him to _lookawaylookawayyouwontlikewhatyouseeyouwontlikewhatHEsees._

She huffed and Hannibal looked up, into Will’s eyes, then over to where his eyes had been flicking over all night. “Hello, Miss Katz,” he said, not unkindly, eyes glittering with good humor.

Beverly grinned, finally taking a bite of her ( _nonexistent, she doesn’t exist and neither does her plate oh my god what is my life_ ) stew. “You know, he really _is_ a great cook I don’t know why I didn’t get to come to this table earlier. Kinda pissed about it, actually.”

“Hannibal, don’t,” he whined, instead.

“Don’t, what, my love?”

“Don’t... legitimize this. Pander to me or whatever you’re doing.”

Hannibal set down his cutlery delicately, folding his _strong, so strong and large_ hands over his plate, looking at Will, then to Bev _notherenothere_ , and back to Will again. “Did you ever think that talking about this would be better than tying yourself up in knots? It’s not very healthy, Will.”

Will laughed ruefully. “What part of any of this, exactly, is healthy?”

Hannibal cleared his throat, and then the table. “The way I see it; we have been through a lot of trials together. Some literally, actually. And we’re all the better for it. We’re stronger together than apart. We understand each other. We have open communication and are building a solid foundation of trust upon our shared past. We share interests,” Will snorted, “and we share a bed. We never go to sleep angry, even though we have our disagreements, and we love each other. We’re just like any other average, middle-aged second marriage, if not better. Because there are no lies between us.”

They shared a look of understanding, Hannibal coming back from the kitchen and kneeling next to Will’s chair, taking one of Will’s hands and putting it on his face and mirroring the gesture back on Will’s face with one of his own. “I never wanted to kill Miss Katz. Nor our daughter.”

“But you did,” Will whispered, as if confirming it would damn them.

“I did.” Tears brimmed, then began to fall from Hannibal’s eyes. It wasn’t the first time Will had seen him cry, of course, they had plenty of time the past year or so to talk and reacquaint themselves with each other. They had shared _everything_ , every question – from Mischa to Molly – that had been asked had been answered. This simply was the answer to a question that had yet to be asked.

Will wiped away the tears closest to his fingers as Hannibal nuzzled his hand, breathing deep. “I forgave you.”

Hannibal nodded once, slowly, “Perhaps you have. But can you forgive yourself?”

Will tried to pull away, a knee-jerk reaction to pull away and deny, but Hannibal held fast, “I didn’t kill them.”

“Not that, my love. Can you forgive yourself for forgiving _me_?”

Will broke. It was as if he had been carrying a wall within himself and now it was bowing, a torrent releasing everything he’d held back within himself finding an outlet through his eyes, through his mouth as he cried.

He cried for Beverly. He cried for Abigail. He cried for himself. He cried for Hannibal. For Mischa. For himself.

He mourned what he and Hannibal could have been without all of these games and manipulations. He cried because he was thankful, even for that, because they were finally, _finally_ blessedly together and oh god have mercy on him for finding his one true solace in this monster of a man who loved him. This monster who saw him, truly saw every part of him, and answered the yawning ache within him with his own, matching call. A mating call.

His perfect mate.

His equal.

His beloved.

His Hannibal.

  
  
Later… God, so much later, they were curled upon the floor in the dining room. The cement tile was cold. They were going to have to get up soon. But it felt good to his heated face, and sweat-damp skin. It was here that Will felt himself see Hannibal with fresh eyes.

He could see the man he loves. Cheekbones that could cut glass, warm brown eyes, laugh lines around his eyes, greyed hair, tanned skin, pillow-soft lips, strong chin. No pain or anger associated with this face, any longer, no more guilt. Hannibal’s eyes held no more games or torment for him, only tenderness, only love.

Their first kiss was tinged with sadness, with regret, with tears, but also hope and love and a promise of a new beginning that honored both of them and what they could be – _together._

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been toying with this idea basically since this summer and finally just sat down and wrote it all out in about a day. Had some laptop troubles, but it's here and I'm willing to hear any and all critiques and suggestions for the next chapter. Mi casa es su casa, bienvenido.
> 
> Title is from the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, often considered more beautiful thatn the previous state of the pottery. Take that with the idea of the teacup as you will.
> 
> Sorry Reba/Molly is only a mention at this time, I may do something with them later but am undecided. Inspired by MurderGatsby and PinkBagels, I do hope you like this.
> 
> There is another chapter, at least, planned for this 'verse, though, so stick around.


End file.
